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When I hear people mentioning lost recordings or issues with organizing and storing their recordings, I always wonder if sharing the system I use could be helpful. My system works with any app or recorder that allows users to create folders and move recordings between them.

I treat folders as music playlists and I choose what to listen to depending on the situation. For example, if I am in a rough spot at work, I can go to the “Love Letter” folder or to the “What I love about my Job” folder.

I also have folders with insights and encouragement about recurring karmic processes and I have more general ones, such as “Mentor Recordings,” “Gratitudes” or “Reassurances.” On a Saturday evening, when caught in the “should I party all night or should I go to bed at 9pm?” dualistic bamboozle, I can turn to the “Party and People” folder, in which I have been saving insights and encouragement about this topic for years. (Conditioning says,“to little avail,” but it is a lying liar!) Alternatively, I can tune into Life’s guidance from one of the more general folders.

One of the folders I listen to most is a huge one called “Guidance” in which I keep the most mind-blowing, meaningful bits of wisdom I hear on the Living Compassion radio shows; heart-opening paragraphs from email classes; Project Joy assignments; books; or poetic snippets from Alan Watts, Rumi, and the likes. When my vision of the world is narrowing, any recording from this folder opens it up.

I also have a “Working on This Week” folder, which I listen to as often as I remember, because it includes stuff I really want to be mindful of at present.

It usually drops in clearly where a recording belongs and it is also obvious when one doesn’t have a place anywhere. This is how I do it practically:

Step 1 - Recording in a temporary folder: Every time I hit "record" throughout the day, my recordings go into a temporary folder named "Checking in and Exposing."

Step 2 - Listening back: When I listen back to what I just recorded, it always arises whether I want to move it to one of the folders/playlists, so I can have it at hand when needed, or if it’s just me exposing conditioning or shooting the breeze with the Mentor, in which case it stays in the temporary folder.

Step 3 – Erasing the recordings that are left in the temporary folder: More or less once per month, I back all the recordings up on my computer (from which they get backed up on a cloud) and then I empty the temporary folder. In this way, I always have the most meaningful ones on my phone — lots of them actually— and still don’t run out of space. Folders about karmic processes that are currently not salient in my life might get out for a bit too, to free up space, but are always there to be added back, if needed.

Here’s where to begin your own organization process:

Start with creating a folder for the recordings that can “save you” when you are in the dark room. During down times, put your recorder, with all the recordings you have on shuffle and, every time one of those “magical” recordings comes up, be sure to move it or copy it to your “save you” folder.